


Near New

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [183]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 00:06:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4685213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Captain America. Everyone’s in the aftermath of escaping from the Hydra facility. Bucky finally has time to ‘really’ look at the changes done to Steve and talk to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near New

The entire rag-tag company of escapees pushes as far west as they can before night falls. By then, soldiers are leaning on each other, putting everything they had into just landing one foot after another.

Bucky is physically exhausted - war has introduced him to whole new depths of cold and pain and fear and tired. But his brain is jittery, bouncing from thought to thought.

He can almost feel the sparks in his head, like arcs of electricity finding earth.

He huddles, back to the treads of one of the tanks, knees drawn up tight against his chest, and watches Steve.

Steve had raided the base single-handedly, released the prisoners, led the escape, and then marched at the head of the company as they headed for the Allied front. And he was still moving easily, no sign of fatigue, of hunger, of cold.

Bucky would have been carrying the Stevie he knew for the last twenty miles. The Stevie he knew would have been struggling to breath, pale and shaking from lack of food, sleep, rest.

They did this to him. They rebuilt him from the cells up.  Like he can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, Steve turns, and it’s the same smile, the one that Bucky knew from a much slighter face. Same eyes. Thank god they didn’t change   
that, when they were changing everything else.

Bucky rubs up his arm, biting his lip against the wince when he feels where the fucking Nazis had jabbed a thousand needles into his arm, and huddles deeper into his coat.


End file.
